Be The Serpent

Be the Serpent is a literary and media analysis podcast hosted by three redheaded Slytherin-ish fantasy authors – Jennifer Mace, Freya Marske, and Alexandra Rowland. With episodes launching every other Wednesday, we discuss craft, deconstruct tropes, and demonstrate that fanfiction has earned the right to stand alongside professional speculative fiction.

It is a podcast of extremely deep literary merit.

Here are a select few episodes which give a sense of the topics we cover:

Episode 7: Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells The Story

In which we discuss historiography, propaganda, narrative control, and some excellent pieces of fiction: “Written by the Victors” by Speranza, the Broadway show Hamilton, and The Fifth Season by NK Jemisin.

 

Episode 19: You and Me and Our Boyfriend Makes Three

In which we talk triads! Tentpoles are “The Rundown Job” (Leverage season 5, episode 9); “Always Starts the Same, with a Boy and a Girl”, by lightgetsin (White Collar fanfic); and “Didn’t Know How Lost I Was”, by Annakovsky (Star Wars fanfic).

 

Episode 25: Kill Your Darlings

How many ways can authors make us cry? In which we’re dissecting (and, dare we say, postmortem-ing) character deaths, aided and abetted by “Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose” by Synecdochic, the first Hunger Games movie, and “Singing My Sister Down” by Margo Lanagan.